Anchor Worm in Quarantine Tank

[Hermie]

Hi fish docs,

I introduced a snail to my invert QT a week ago from LFS on which I discovered several anchor worms. I didn't see the worms until the snail had been in the tank for at least a week, but the snail is now isolated in an outside container.

How long must I wait for any eggs or juveniles potentially in the Quarantine tank to live out their lifecycle and die without a host? There is only 1 other snail in the tank which I assume is a potential host, and I may need to remove that snail also, what do you think? The other inverts in there are copepods, hermit crabs, and a dying sponge.

 

[Big G]

Anchor worms can be a challenge to remove from a tank completely. Usually you dose the tank with Dimilin. You redose every 3-5 days as Dimilin does not kill Anchor worms in the egg form.

Dimilin will kill most snails, copepods, shrimp, etc. The saltwater anchor worm is somewhat related to the copepod.

Dimilin usually is not harmful to fish, plants. But your mileage could vary. So caution is the word.

I'm not aware of a hard figure of days to starving out the parasite in saltwater; In freshwater its 30 ish days or so.

Let's see if someone else can help with a hard number of going fallow in saltwater for anchor worms #reefsquad

 

[Ron Reefman]

In 15 years in the hobby I have never seen or even heard of anchor worms! You learn something new everyday!

 

[Big G]

In 15 years in the hobby I have never seen or even heard of anchor worms! You learn something new everyday!

A buddy of mine, actually my school principal I worked with, raises/breeds koi. Anchor worms were a constant plague for his koi tanks. Some of his koi were worth thousands of dollars.

 

[Gareth elliott]

I have had multiple anchor worm infections in my outdoor pond.

First incident was shipment of koi that arrived with it, every several years they are infected again when it arrives on a wandering water fowl.

Depending on severity I usually start by manually removing the parasites i see as soon as i see flashing. No treatment from start of flashing mortality occurs 3-7 days ime in koi this is 100%.

I then do a 50% wc. And dose microbe lift lice and anchor worm . A week later repeat. Main ingredient is cyromazine, an insecticide that has a relatively high lsd in fish and amphibians.

As far as how long to go fallow.

There are over 6000 known species of copepods that are parasitic. Would be hard to verify a species experienced by one is the one in your case.

 

[Hermie]

Alright I'm an noob. After seeing how rare anchor worms are based on you all's replies, I looked at some pictures of the snail (margarita) and now I realize those are sensor tentacles not worms...